Everyday Feminism

[T]oo many people, and to my dismay, too many young people, see feminism as more a label than a praxis. When I’m teaching Race, Racism and the Law and I talk about the intersection of race, gender and sexual orientation, when we talk about what would be mainstream feminist thought, many students would agree with those ideas , ideals and ideology more broadly. But if you call them feminists, many of them get upset, because they see it as this static label, and they’re not even sure what it means, but a lot of them think it’s bad, even people who would otherwise embrace feminist principles. So that’s probably the biggest challenge: Getting people to understand that there is such a thing as everyday feminism, and that’s what thoughtful people practice. Many of us do feminism all the time, and we should be comfortable acknowledging that. If I asked a class of people “are you a feminist?” half the people would say “no.” But if I said, “do you believe the following things or do the following things?” then I’d see very different results. I mean, if you love and respect and value women, you’re a feminist.